Prof. Davies: Wired is WRONG - Billionaires are not Ruining Economy

Billionaires. Should They Exist? Politicians and content producers love to say they are bad for the economy.
Attempting to debunk so-called myths, Wired launched a video, "Economists Debunk Top 5 Billionaire Myths" putting forth some misleading claims. It was so riddled with errors that we had to bring in Professor Antony Davies, Associate Professor of Economics at Duquesne University, to respond.
As always, his insight was clear, logical, and backed up with data.
►► More from Professor Antony Davies:
► 7 MYTHS You Learned in High School About the GREAT DEPRESSION: • Debunking 7 High Schoo...
► Words & Numbers: wordsandnumbersorg.wpcomstagi...
CHAPTERS
0:00 The role of billionaires in society
0:37 Claim #1: Most billionaires aren’t self-made.
1:49 Claim #2: Billionaires don't pay much in taxes.
4:15 Claim #3: Billionaires are a "black hole."
5:05 Claim #4: You are competing with the very rich for the ownership of assets.
7:51 Claim #5: The standard of living in the U.S. was better in the past.
10:01 Claim #6: The U.S. has a flat tax.
12:27 Claim #7: Billionaires don’t give enough to charity.
15:50 Claim #8: Billionaires exploit loopholes.
18:23 Claim #9: Billionaires own their corporations.
19:51 Claim #10: Billionaires’ corporations are destroying jobs with technology.
21:45 What’s the REAL root problem?
#Billionaires #ElonMusk #Wealth #Taxes
LEARN LIBERTY:
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[@characarosandi1589]

'When money can buy power, you hav a problem. The problem isn't the money, the problem is that there is power for sale' What a quote. Great stuff as usual from Prof. Davies 🙌

[@DearSX]

Another way of saying it is "When money can buy you drugs, you have a problem. The problem is not the money, but that there are drugs for sale'. try stopping that!

[@roberto6536]

historically, power has always been for sale. So the excess in richness has always been the problem

[@goldsilvervscrisiscollapse4320]

@@roberto6536 So ultimately... IT'S STILL THE BILLIONAIRES FAULT? Oh no, it's the SYSTEM that allows them to bribe politicians... Then how do you fix the system, when the billionaires have the power and the politicians cater to them? Seriously the amount of sucking up going on here... so you dont want to blame billionaires, but you also dont wanna blame the system. You blame the availability of political power, but without said power, billionaires have no power so why would they allow it? Ultimately there's NOTHING you can do or will do. billionaires don't ONLY get rich by providing what we want. They also MONOPOLIZE by starving or buying out their competition. As for the fixed assets fallacy, human WANTS are infinite- there IS a limit to how many assets there are, and while we can increase it with technology etc... the billionaires ALREADY OWN the companies that will increase said assets. Ergo THEY get the majority or even grow the percentage of total assets they have at an accelerated rate. The pretentiousness of this person pretending to be an economist, when he clearly only picks parts of the economic concepts that enable him to suck up to the wealthy is astounding.

[@ryancl01]

​@@roberto6536 if there is no "excess in richness" (assuming you mean money). It is logical to conclude that there would be other means to transact for that power.

[@aker1993]

@@ryancl01 their is a concept of called "debt of gratitude" you make political favors by suing that concept.

[@saeidnourian4237]

I'm impressed by how well professor Davies explains various issues. In particular how calm he is while answering and how comprehensive the debt of his answers are. Please keep up the videos.

[@johnvannewhouse]

Also, everyone remember his salient point which I will paraphrase here: "When buying and selling are controlled by the legislature, the first thing to be bought and sold is legislators. The problem isn't that politicians can be bought. That's human nature. The problem is that we've given them such power that they are worth buying."

[@Frankincensedjb123]

As a professor in CA who teaches econ, I bring up this point all the time. We need wealth. It's borrowed to create startups (think Shark Tank), used to employ millions, and to house as many, for many live in apartments and other rental properties that wouldn't exist without wealth. What's worse is poverty. That's the real killer, not wealth.

[@LuIsSaNcHeZ510]

You should listen to Stansberry research with Mike Maloney. You are correct but without a free market the government always bails out the big banks and big corporations while the poor and middle class lose their assets. Socialism for the wealthy and free market for everyone else.

[@yujiechang3414]

That is only true if the wealthy pay it forward by investing in new tech and infrastructure that help the society. Increasingly, they are just hoarding the wealth, playing the stock buy back game, and socializing their investment losses. This leads to less innovation, higher inflation, and worse products for the average person.

[@MusaMecanica]

As a professor in CA, maybe you should aactually look up the states on the businesses that go to Shark Tank.

[@RipMinner]

What came first the Wealth or the Nature resources that the apartments are made of or the land the apartments sit on? And did money build the apartments or did workers? Just asking for a friend.

[@LuIsSaNcHeZ510]

@@RipMinner the apartments are the wealth. Without the capital necessary to buy the resources from people who work to harvest those recourses and to pay the workers to build using the resources, it would be much more difficult for people without the skills to manage capital, harvest recourses, and build with them, to have a place to live. Instead people use the skills they do have to get money and they pay rent out of that. If you’re asking why a few people own so many apartments/wealth and constantly rising prices make it harder and harder for employees to survive, I recommend Mike Maloney’s video series “the Hidden Secrets of Money” and his new book.

[@tedphillips3119]

Generally when someone is just handed a large sum of money they blow it. Maintaining wealth is just as hard as obtaining it.

[@mladenmilosavljevic6449]

Too bad people are spreading lies about economy, this video is very informative and good, but whenever i point out that facts to the populus I hit a brickwall where people simply do not understand this points.

[@bapi6643]

Apparently billionaires are a bad thing, but politicians creating TRILLIONS out of thin air is a good thing

[@marleybot9848]

That's an odd statement, considering that politicians work for the billionaires/owner class. The shadow government is owned and controlled by these very billionaires, who fund Learn Liberty, the Chicago school of economics, and others that push their pro-corporate anti-people propaganda.

[@bapi6643]

@@marleybot9848 I guess you’re correct. Perhaps you should dust of the guillotines and revisit the reign of terror. That should get rid of them. Liberte, egalite, fraternite.

[@timbirdie8180]

When can they do that.. or are you just making stuff. Up, also aren't many millanries better since they are all more likely to compete in the business's they find than a few billaries who can buy everything.

[@bapi6643]

@@timbirdie8180 every time they spend money above what they take in taxes, they create money out of thin air by creating debt that must be paid off later. That’s how the whole system works, and why we are $33 trillion dollars in debt

[@Betcsbirds]

Where do you get the "apparently" part? Nowhere did he say in this video that billionaires are a bad thing.

[@ayodejilanre1790]

There is a different btw monopoly capitalist billionaires and free market billionaires. Free market billionaires create value dat is why they are rich. Monopoly capitalist collude with bureaucrats and politicians to gain unfair advantage. so blame ur politicians that are corrupt and also create policies that makes i difficult for businesses to create jobs at a fast enough rate.

[@joshuawadsworth6417]

Also known as cronyists.

[@AntonyDavies]

Monopoly billionaires aren't a market failure, but a government failure. With very few exceptions, it's not possible to remain a monopoly without government actively holding back potential competitors.

[@ayodejilanre1790]

@@AntonyDavies yeah govt failure . I could also say people failure for failing to watch and monitor their lawmakers cos once a politician goes to the congress. He gets swarmed by lobbyists to create laws and regulations to kill off the competitors. Freemarket and democracy is hard. The citizens have to be constantly alert to protect it from opportunists and wolves in sheep clothing.

[@AntonyDavies]

@@ayodejilanre1790 yes, "people failure." I include people-as-voters when I think of "government" in the same way that I include people-as-consumers when I think of "markets."

[@marleybot9848]

​@@AntonyDavies That's because billionaires and corporations have paid to have deregulations, regulations, policies, laws, etc. in their favor. I don't understand why you don't address that ever, is it because you are backed and funded by them as well?

[@libertarianterminator]

Finally, someone said it. That most people receive more than they pay into the system. Welfare is a major problem that no one wants to acknowledge because they all benefit from it in one way or another.

[@christiangrosjean2980]

It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It

[@marleybot9848]

That is the way the stock market works though and how a lot of the top 2% get their money, by getting more than they put into the system. And its through the stock buybacks and such, that they cheat having to pay in.

[@pebblepod30]

Sure welfare is sometimes wasted on people who don't need it, but note several facts: (1) Less welfare is needed when there is more public ownership of basic necessities (that means your ownership), because things are cheaper, even if they are privately run. CEO's can also be elected. (2) Lots of welfare is only needed because big business is maximizing profit, and therefore not paying enough to working poor. Extra profits = more welfare (3) In Australia at least (& I know of no exception), Pension is much cheaper, with less other costs to society, than Superannuation system. (4) Note that massive amount of money created by private banks & central banks that go into a form of greed & wastage (housing price inflation, war, corporate welfare). Why not the same criticism? (5) Note that Corporate welfare is greater than Public welfare cost, is it not? That includes Bank Bailouts.

[@Meitti]

Welfare is in place to mitigate the effects of people falling out of society entirely, which is far more expensive to the society. Homeless selling drugs, robbing people and doing gang violence is more costly to the society than making sure the poor are sober, get food and have a roof on top of their heads. The filthy rich often forget that they would never have gotten to be so rich, if the society itself would be in shambles, there would be no customers and no buying power. African countries have no welfare and governments are often too weak to collect taxes. So on paper they're the paradises of rich people. Except that they're not because nobody can buy what they're selling.

[@libertarianterminator]

@@Meitti funny how you think they can't get welfare and sell drugs at the same time. It's also funny how people are in favor of all of this, but never in their life were they there to see for themselves. I wasn't there either, but I talked with someone who was born in welfare housing and lived among them, and let me tell you, I've never met someone who despised welfare recepients more. He told me that people on welfare are poor because they make poor choices and that they don't deserve my sympathy.

[@wayando]

The problem with Billionaires is not the money. It's the influence that it gives them in politics. So I guess the real problem is in preventing the influence of raw money in the selection of leaders, allocation of resources, and implimentation of policies, et c.

[@ariihauu_mrs]

The solution is by dismantling the government

[@razoredge6130]

Government should not have that much power.

[@MaxStirner123]

Leaving aside the fact that yes, money is also a problem because the concentration of money in a few individuals does not encourage the economy, which is objectively true. One thing are "small" millionaires but the big multinationals and the billionaires do not favor the consumer (monopoly = no competition which is the engine of capitalism) and furthermore they do not consume when they should (another fundamental thing for capitalism)

[@TheWhiteMamba3000]

Another issue is that a lot of economic problems have easy solutions but it is more profitable to ignore them, such as homelessness. In New York City, the state gives enough money to solve the problem, but the charities as a business model creates a situation of doing the bare minimum, because if they solved homelessness, they would stop receiving money.

[@timbirdie8180]

Your right a one time large help would be better

[@ryansears4387]

Well said. It should be fiscally irresponsible of a corp to lobby goobermint for favorable regulations.

[@tna2me197]

This is absolutely spot on. And the end conclusion is also on point. The trouble is accountability at the head of government. More transparency and accountability would help us to see the “corruption”.

[@skepticalgenious]

Accountability would be nice. I have zero proof it can be fixed. The rabbit hole is very deep. Do we even have a choice when it comes to voting? Cuz I don't think the majority of Americans voted for this geriatrics patient who doesn't know he is supposedly the president.

[@Johnny_Cash_Flow]

"If Socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be Socialists." - Nobel Laureate Economist F.A. Hayek

[@JM-ws6ku]

"Every socialist is a disguised dictator" Ludwig von Mises, Hayek's tutor.

[@pebblepod30]

Socialism means by definition "democracy in economics, with value of equality". And Capitalism (same thing as corporatism in practice) only has bad results for normal people, despite WHAT THE CORPORATE propaganda has told ME my whole life. Even planned economies of USSR (not socialist, but planned) went much worse when they became Capitalist, and have never recovered. All the best Corporations for people (Mondragon, Ocean Spray) are socialist/co-op. All the best Govts were too (meaning democracy & valuing equality in economics: Chile before US Coupe in 1972; Catalonia before WW2). Even USSR, while not technically socialist by definition, was better for average people than US today. Imagine if the USSR was democratic (must be by definition, to be socialist, i.e. for those effected be economic power to have a say).

[@Johnny_Cash_Flow]

@@pebblepod30 Nope. With your first two lines you've demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of economics. Good job. Socialism means, by definition, a centrally-planned economy which claims to prioritize the common ownership of property but which ultimately always results in starvation and genocide. Just ask the 100,000,000 innocent dead citizens who died under Socialist/Communist governments throughout the 20th Century. Capitalism and Corporatism are not the same thing, that's why they have different names. You can't even pass that low bar of understanding. Corporatism requires government involvement and manipulation of the market, whereas Capitalism requires no government regulation. The USSR never "became Capitalist." It collapsed because Communism always results in starvation and genocide after its government mismanaged the economy and targeted millions of "kulaks" for genocide and enslavement in the Gulag Archipelago. So, excellent example there, bright one. LOL You think Ocean Spray is one of "the best corporations" and that they're "socialists?" LOL Yes, the consumers are just clamoring for Ocean Spray! I can't go a day without hearing someone talk about how great Ocean Spray is LOL. And, yeah, they're so Socialist; that's why they produce a product consumers are willing to BUY. You know, like Capitalists LOL. Again, demonstrating your awesome understanding of economics. What you consider "the best" is irrelevant. 100,000,000 people would argue that your opinion is wrong. You have no concept of history. You have no understanding of economics. You have proven Hayek's point exquisitely. Thank you for the laughs.

[@ViddyOJames]

@@pebblepod30 shut up, commie. capitalism is the only reason you're able to be here.

[@ExPwner]

@@pebblepod30literally not one word of what you just said is true.

[@whatsup3519]

Problem with public college? Why it can't able to keep up with market skills? Is there any reason for ineffectiveness of public college? Pls, explore this topic

[@roquettothestars9751]

Most of the public colleges are run by socialist proffesors. Unless it's a trade school.

[@Trainrhys]

The problem is that if everyone has education then it’s not valuable, basically inflation for education as an employer always wants the best which is why now college and university is pointless in terms of knowledge and if you go to a normal one useless for getting a job, if there was less required education universities would teach useful stuff and people would leave earlier with enough skills

[@J0shM0nster]

Wait wait wait. As a middle income person, how do I get some of that federal money? I want a negative tax rate.

[@wuy4]

You don't, only the poors get an actual negative tax rate. Now pay up so we can afford to give the bottom 30% their welfare checks.

[@Trainrhys]

@@wuy4yet again the poor is grabbing on to those above pulling them down whilst not trying themselfs

[@bryanboone7363]

The Keynesian economists say thlngs that sound g66d to the average person, but even under the most slmpIe scrutiny, you find that none of what they say are true.

[@AntonyDavies]

IMO, Keynesian economics (and now, Modern Monetary Theory) would have faded into obscurity if it weren't for the fact that politicians can use the theory to support things they want to do: spend and print money. They are, at least to some degree, simply academic window dressing for favored policies.

[@peggychristensen419]

Excellent presentation.. especially the end point .the government is not constrained from controlling the economy..it ought not be able to grant the requests of anyone to buy favors

[@marcusmoonstein242]

Good explanation, but unfortunately most ordinary people have decided that they hate billionaires. Logic and facts will not change these peoples minds.

[@AntonyDavies]

Ordinary people can revoke Jeff Bezos' billionaire status at any time. All we have to do is to stop buying from Amazon. Its stock would tank and Bezos' fortune would be wiped out. Of course, people won't do that - and that's the whole point. In a free market, billionaires are billionaires because we consumers willingly give them our money in exchange for their products.

[@mikeguilmette776]

And this is definitely a case of consider the source. Wired appeals to those very people.

[@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993]

No problem. They will learn the hard way once the rich leave

[@dropian]

Well yes, you don't stay a billionaire if you are a good person. Bezos has the individual wealth to feed every human on the planet and effectively end world hunger yet he doesn't. Instead amazon employees are peeing into bottles and are suffering from union busting. Billionaires are the enemy to the people as they have the means to do good and have the power to do so but don't.

[@bvoyelr]

This video may have been recorded a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure by the time it was released, Elon had bought the whole of Twitter and taken the company private. He bought that 9% stake a few months prior to completely buying it out. They even had the b-roll of Elon carrying in the sink, so I'm not sure where the disconnect is.

[@SalveMonesvol]

I'd say two areas have gotten worse for the middle class: cost of education and housing market.

[@Trainrhys]

Both of these were caused by the government, education because it’s free for to long and required meaning you have to take ridiculous courses to get above the market and housing is because of planning permission ridiculous safety requirements and unnecessary environmental regulations

[@henry1138]

Is there anywhere to find citations for Professor’s statistics? For example, when he says that corrected inequality is 3% less than in 1947.

[@AntonyDavies]

The inequality information is found in the book The Myth of American Inequality. The book cites the sources.

[@Goldsilver]

Would LOVE to get together with you on my channel at some stage. Excellent work.

[@Yellowgary]

Learn liberty should make this happen.

[@williamgras5598]

criminally underrated video

[@nonlosobene]

Guys, thank you for the video but I think the music is a bit too loud

[@jeannedouglas9912]

Gotta admit, Elon Musk as a leprechaun counting his gold is too cute.

[@nathanbarnhart7823]

I’d love citations linked in the description. Great video.

[@brucehitchcock3869]

Money is NOT a resource. But if one bought degraded land and leased it to agroforestry or permaculture farmers they will triple the land value in 8 years, become rich farmers,and then you sell st full market value. And your grandkids have a planet worth living on!🙏🌎🖖❤️💘

[@ikeikeforty]

Gotta love Prof Davies!

[@ProWhitaker]

Thanks for the video, love Anthony Davies

[@fiddlepants5947]

Antony******* Reeeeeeee

[@johnvannewhouse]

Do not play their Orwellian games with language because you concede their premises right off the bat. Example: "loophole". Oh, did you mean to say "the law as written"?

[@andrewberdahl9922]

You lose me on the amazon bit. That chart seems to indicate amazon profited every year yet never paid more than 15% other than 1 year. And their best year actually received money. Scratching my head here.

[@thegooz1417]

Amazing video!

[@PenguinJockey13]

Great video. This should have far more views than it does.

[@jeremyharvey9841]

Most people won’t watch it because it doesn’t feed their confirmation bias/preconceived notions

[@pebblepod30]

The problem is that when financial elites have LIBERTY, that means the liberty to buy elections & media, fund economic theory that maximizes their profit, and get anyone in a position of power to tell us things that maximize their profit. i.e. The freedom of financial elites is our enslavement & exploitation. Cue yet another Bank Bailout, because that is how Capitalism (exact same thing in practice as Corporatism) MUST work in practice, because their no democracy in economic power. Capitalism (corporatism) is also incompatible with Traditional Conservative values, as Lauren Southern explained on a video on her channel.

[@pebblepod30]

@@jeremyharvey9841 Can you imagine the difference though if the same companies were multi-billion dollar Co-ops, like Mondragon or Ocean Spray? Or if it was just publicly owned? See, most of the basic technology we use today, Govt Research organizations & Govt money paid for & developed. That includes the internet your using now, GPS, and Mobile. Private companies only come in when their money to be made, and then usually ruin it, like Google did to KZbin. Second Thought Channel has a great video on this, search "innovation" & it's channel name to see it.

[@pebblepod30]

@@jeremyharvey9841 Me & you were both brought up on mainstream media propaganda that promotes the economic interests of their owners, regardless of the outcomes for the rest of us. Are you going to attack & accuse me about this, or instead look at the corrupt economic system?

[@CartierCasey]

Well spoken

[@Xyanider]

Just a comment on the tax for curches in germany, it is optional. So you do only have to pay curch tax aka "Kirchensteuer" if you are a member of some of the available churches. What is more interessting is that apart for the curch tax curches actually get additional founding by the government via subsidies which were declared wayback in the 1803 but are still applied today. Barely anybody actually payes curch tax as far as I know.

[@AK_Vortex]

You know, when I first started watching this I was thinking similarly to the people he was referring to that has a misnomer about the wealthy and taxes at least on some of the concepts. But Prof Davies is absolutely on the money when it comes to the Government overreach that causes the imbalance. Especially with the unrestricted printing of money, allowing the FED to diddle with Interest rates and bailing out the banks with tax payer dollars after they've made stupid/greedy decisions. I do have issue with Bill Gates using his questionably earned wealth in buying up a fairly large portion of US Farm Land. Someone went as far as saying that his choice of locations coincided with large aquifers of fresh water, something that has been touted as a commodity nations may go to war over in the future. Or Bezos who uses his wealth to ensure that Government doesn't side with the formation of unions or fair representation or treatment of its employees. Anyway, my point in this, is even if you're skeptical... watch it all the way through. You might learn something. I did.

[@nellosnook4454]

Thanks Professor Davies! 👍

[@svokxz6435]

Interesting video.

[@EternityinOurHearts316]

You should split this video up. Most people will not watch a 20 minute video on the subject.

[@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993]

That's why they're broke

[@taconobaka1688]

I think the underlying misconception of this video is that the pie is growing. It is true that this is the premise our economic model is based on, but we are now entering a period of demographic decline which means there will be less consumers, less available labor, and with the retirement of the country's largest ever generation, the Boomers, less available capitol. Add to this the decline of global demographics in the developed world reduce our ability to export...less consumers over seas means less trade. In other words, the pie is going to be shrinking during the next 10 to 20 years. Much of this can be offset by increasing our legal immigration as there appears to be no shortage of people that would like to come to the US, but the current political realities are standing in the way of this. The fact is, we don't have an economic model that doesn't depend on growth as a driving factor. We desperately need to rethink our old Keynesian-based Capitalist models. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for Socialism, but it seems like by the late 19th century we just decided that we just quit alternatives to Keynes and Marx and accepted them as the only two possible economic models. The Keynesian model worked up until now. The Marxist Model...not so much; the wheels came off the Marxist model almost before it could be established, and combined with Leninist Marxism became a horrific engine of death and oppression of the populous. Also misleading is Davies' assessment of automation. He's clearly looking at it from the perspective of an economist, not like someone with a background in maintenance. Let say Amazon has ten robots that replace ten workers, and this is critical, per shift. Lets say these robots can work 16+ hours a day with some down time for recharging the batteries and maintenance. So far these ten robots have replaced upwards of 20 workers. Now, Davies makes the assumption that each robot has one tech to maintain it, which is simple not true. One tech could service well over 10 machines in a single day, assuming the parts are on hand and the breakdowns weren't catastrophic, in which case it would probably be simpler to replace the machine with a new one. Basically speaking if the facility ran a compliment of 40-50 machines, they would only need one onsite tech to keep them running while they did the jobs of 80-100 workers. Add to this the bots are most likely more efficient than human workers, not needing lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, or Federally mandated break times accorded to human workers, plus they would just be more efficient in their movements. So I have to throw the BS flag on Davies' automation argument, even if for the previously state reasons of declining capital to invest in the bots and the declining consumption to justify them weren't factored in. Finally, although I myself am one of the poverty level unwashed masses who doesn't earn a living wage, I don't think that wealth inequality is as big a problem as lot of people seem to think, with the proviso that everyone has enough to keep a roof over their head, food in their belly, clothing on their backs, and maybe a little extra to pursue hobbies or interests that they enjoy. Basically, if everyone has a minimum amount of wealth to be content with their lives then the gap between the top and the bottom 1% isn't relevant except to those that crave more. And if they want more they can pursue higher education, work harder, and maybe achieve their goals. All this is not to say everything is rainbows and unicorns. It's not. We are headed for some painful decades which Professor Davies don't appear to have any solutions for since his training and expertise is about to become if not irrelevant then at least somewhat obsolete. For the record, I'm a follower of the Geo-Political Strategist, Peter Zeihan. If you want to know more about what I'm talking about look him up and check out a few of his 1 hr+ presentations. I will warn you, his analysis is a bit dark, and frankly with the current state of affairs in Mexico with the Cartels, I think he might be a bit optimistic about Mexico's role on North America's ability to weather the coming collapse of globalization, but we'll see.

[@captnhuffy]

100% Standing Ovation

[@tygerk2372]

8:04 That music is so smooth, I wish I could have it!

[@Andrew300082]

The fact he refers to Billionaires as Trees makes me think of that song by Rush

[@Dangerous_Leon]

It's bizarre that anyone but a child thinks that we would be better off with less on our plate, but divided equally.

[@acz88]

99% of the poor and middle class thinks this way because they are misinformed by politicians, msm, and social activists. If people properly educate themselves then they’ll realize they been lied to by people who benefits from lying to the public. It’s manipulation, using people’s envy against themselves. IMO :)

[@middlesidetopwise]

Who is asking for that? Who is asking for you personally to have less?

[@soundscape26]

I have never heard anyone saying they want less on their plate. We eat too much anyway.

[@YashArya01]

@@middlesidetopwise That's what redistribution in the name of equality does.

[@middlesidetopwise]

@@YashArya01 It does? I thought redistribution of wealth meant that the people holding up the economy by hoarding trillions in government funds have less. Everyone else gets more.

[@AJBulava]

I know lots of churchs give money charitably to the poor and other social services but I wonder how much of that charitable giving is money given to churches that never make their way into the hands of the poor. Is there any data on that?

[@ahdhehcfudjdnc4859]

Some of this is incorrect. The part that is incorrect is the purchasing power that he said has increased since the early 1900s. That's somewhat incorrect. For example, a regular worker at Ford made the equivalent of an oz and half of gold per week in 1912. With that wage, he could afford a whole year at Yale with like three months' salary. It's somewhat incorrect because when the government adds regulation to an industry, we tend to be able to buy less of that industry over the years. It was more for clarification.

[@deathlife2414]

The greatest asset of all time is human labor and human life. The better humans are the better the economy.

[@LuIsSaNcHeZ510]

If you compare the median income today to 2000 it’s only slightly up and inflation has risen much more thanks to our central banks controlling the price of money through the fractional reserve banking system.

[@viktor1444]

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[@viktor1444]

​@Kimberly Smalls Her success story has been in the news when she revived premark company, I'm not surprised she's been mentioned here because her trading strategy is outstanding and it's rated one of the best 😊

[@GamerFromJump]

I hate how once-great magazines fell off. _Rolling Stone_ used to be the go-to place to learn about the music scene. Then they started going all Left all the time and were about as much about music as MTV, culminating in the infamous glamour cover of a *_MASS-MURDERING TERRORIST._* _Wired_ used to be where I went to read about all the cool stuff technology was going to be able to do. Now it’s pretty much all watermelon (green outside, red inside) agitprop and being the print version of a Red Guard “struggle session”. There’s nowhere to go for techno-optimism anymore, and I hate it.

[@orhirshfeld]

I live in Germany and you can opt out of paying church tax by saying you have no religion. At least i did it when i moved here, not sure if you can change it later. Anyway i agree with most of your points, thanks for this video

[@solotravel7530]

Right

[@williamfagerheim1817]

The root problem is that there is a justice system that is completely impotent and incompetent to protect the people against a tyrannichal government. Instead of being beholden to the people and the constitution they are beholden to the congress. Goverment should not control neither the justice system nor the national defence. The profession of Law Enforcement should be a free market trade and the national defence should be done by a milita only commanded by the local Sheriff's.

[@robertmiller6444]

Actually the trope of "creating jobs in building and maintaining robots is a fallacy. If you are paying those people to do the work of creating robots and maintaining them to do the moving of boxes as to those people directly doing the moving of boxes, that's just a wash, a sideways move as you haven't reduced the cost of producing those goods and services. No, you WANT those people OUT of that process chain so that the cost of those goods and services can be lower. What IS the benefit is that those people are then available to do OTHER different NEW jobs producing NEW goods and services that could not previously be produced while those people were tied up in those previous jobs and thus unavailable to produce those NEW goods and services. For example, until you make farming productive enough with less labor to free up people working the farms, you don't have people available to work in the factories. That is, you cannot have the goods and services made by industrialization until to make farming productive enough to "kill off" farming jobs to free up those labor resources to be AVAILABLE to then work in industry. It's actually kind of silly to argue that your "creating new jobs" that just shuffle people around just making the same end items as before but just with robots in the chain. No, the point IS to get people OUT of those chains of existing product production so that (a) the price of those goods can be lowered and abundance of them increased at lower cost, and (b) they are available to work in NEW production chains for NEW products that could not be produced until those workers are made available for those jobs by eliminating those jobs in the old goods and services.

[@TheJpwzrd]

Good content, horrible to have music competing with the speaker. No music please.

[@VulgarRage]

This is like arguing astrology against mathematics

[@dmmister9]

Regarding charity: When you have government imposed charities, it creates recipients without gratitude, and donors without hearts.

[@scottmcshannon6821]

billionaires co-opt government, everyone tries to co0opt, the billionaires just have mores resources. billionaires "dont pay enough taxes" idea, we need to tax them more and the poor less. if you actually believe that billionaires co-opt government, and they do, you would realize that raising taxes a lot on the rich just isnt going to happen, unless you dont really believe they co-opt government.

[@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993]

Not really The poor just too lazy to do Same

[@fiddlepants5947]

I read that book in the background. Worth every penny. Read it on a cruise

[@resiliencewithin]

Change the economy then my genius professor

[@benjaminlehman3221]

Wired is Biased? Shocking 🙄

[@RobFlitton1962]

Since when does someone’s individual rights, property rights, and existence need to depend on whether or not it’s “good for the economy?”

[@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993]

Since wokeness took over the voters

[@zyntolaz]

Nice video. Remove the insipid music, and you'll have an even BETTER video. Not only does the "music" (I'm being polite here) NOT add to the information being presented, you probably don't own the copyright, and KZbin will de-monetize you. However, since this music is so crappy, the copyright owner is probably embarrassed to seek remedies for your infringement.

[@macsnafu]

This video may be a year old, but nothing has significantly changed in that year. So many false narratives destroyed in this video. It still amazes me that so many people focus on spending and consumption, and think that the way to help the economy is simply to increase spending, and don't understand that you need to increase production and productivity as well. Otherwise you simply have what we've had for a century now, a Federal Reserve increasing the monetary supply and being the primary driver of price inflation. That's not helping the economy. The wealthy don't store their money in mattresses or giant money bins like Scrooge McDuck. It gets invested, either by the wealthy or by the people handling their money for them, into businesses to increase production and productivity. So taking more money away from the wealthy means less wealth creation for everybody, and a poorer society. I'm also surprised by the people who rail against the political influence of corporations and the wealthy but don't seem to realize that the politicians and bureaucrats are complicit in this corruptive practice. The politicians have the political power, not the wealthy and corporations, who can only try to influence and persuade the politicians in creating legislation. if the politicians said no, there's not much the wealthy/corporations could do except withhold their money from the politicians. But the politicians won't say no, because that's one of the main ways they exert their power, by peddling their influence. Making government more powerful is the same as making corporations more powerful, while reducing the power of government also reduces the power of the corporations.

[@alexissvetrev]

As an average income canadian paying 50%+ in tax, watching these numbers of tax americans pay, my jaw is dropped to the floor

[@jasonboursaw3258]

Remove the income taxes altogether and institute flat rate sales taxes only on the state and federal levels. Abolish the irs, eradicate the accounting and tax compliance/preparation services, (worthless, economically destructive jobs anyhow) and pay the tax at the register. Nobody demands your years history at the register when you pay a sales tax, and if you elect to save rather than spend you pay no tax. Voila! Solved!

[@jamzbraz]

Except for the thousands or even millions of people who work for all those useless government programs you mentioned. Even though some of them understand it would be for the better on a whole, why should they fight so that their job goes out the window? I guess that's the tricky part, power once given is probably impossible to be taken back.

[@jasonboursaw3258]

@jamzbraz you're right. No government employee is willingly going to cut their own throat to improve the situation as a whole. There is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program. Literally, it would require full on revolution and complete reformation. You're not wrong at all.

[@lilyscarlet2584]

@@jamzbraz because keeping a few employees even though its bad for everyone is stupid. its why businesses should be allowed to fail including government ones.

[@tantradossantos4501]

🌈Learn Liberty!

[@elmarwolters2751]

So what are we worried about then ? All is well , no, it's better than ever . We should congratulate ourselves how good it is . In fact , the poor just don't know how good they have got it, do they ? Perhaps they are not poor enough yet .... that's it , let's widen the gap ! Perhaps then the poor get the point that , like the tree , they play an important part in the ' ecosystem ' ..... So like nature itself , there is a natural order..... there ain't no top without a bottom ! Suck it up, poor people !

[@williamforrestall2161]

Good work... However the so called "rich" or "1%" , yes pay more as noted about 30% . However the subject becomes very very interesting , or even politically fearful , is a subject that is not ever mentioned , that is that the top '1%" or top quintile also will always represent a disproportionate percentage of Jewish people. This does beg the question particularly in an age of "intersectional analysis" , are "progressive" taxation policies intrinsically a form of hidden or unconscious bias in terms of anti-Semitism ( that is racist) . The disproportionate impact of " progressive income tax" ( ie coercive taxation) on Jewish people is a factor that is consistent across many nations , France, Italy , England , Canada and the USA , so suggesting that it is a national policy based in "citizenship" criteria , policy independent of other factors may be a form of denial .... One might also recall that a leading 19th cent. advocate of "progressive taxation" was the racist anti-Semitic activist Karl Marx. The evidence of Marx's anti-Semitism cannot be debated. Dr. Bernard Lewis , Professor Emeritus Princeton University in his classic text “ Semites and Anti-Semites” (pg 112) noted Karl Marx as the leading anti-Semitic RACIST of the 19th cent. In spite of being of Jewish origins himself. Marx as a so called "economist" , or possibly more accurately an anti-Semitic activist who veiled his hate policies in "economic " nonsense jargon offers a strong indication that the premise of " progressive taxation" as an exercise in state coercion that disproportionately impacts on the ancient Jewish people of God , is nothing more than a re-packaged bias that can be traced back to the Pharaohs .. At least it is an interesting Question ...

[@ExpatriatePaul]

Government is the problem, laissez-faire is the solution.

[@TheJpwzrd]

We get taxed all of to much

[@leafykille]

At about 3 minutes a comparison is made as to taxation on various groups by income. Firstly this does not address assets, and secondly it's just wrong. Even the poorest pay tax when they go and get groceries, or travel to work. The tax burden should be worked out properly as a proportion of disposable income and include all the stealth taxes. After rent and food and getting to work and clothes etc the poor are often paying more on tax than they get to spend on the occasional luxury like going out for a movie.

[@AntonyDavies]

We're talking about federal taxes. State and local taxes vary widely (sales taxes are not federal taxes). The video does talk about the bait-and-switch of talking about assets. The federal government doesn't tax assets - it taxes income. Further, taxing assets is double-taxation. You're taxed when you earn money. If you don't spend the money, it becomes an asset. So, if you tax the asset, you're taxing that money a second time.

[@leafykille]

So the poor that have to spend almost all their income on travel and food and other necessary things do get taxed twice on all that income and the rich who can save their income not only don't get taxed twice but then have an asset they can use to generate more income without doing any work.

[@AntonyDavies]

@@leafykille I'm not sure you're following the argument. Income is taxed. When you save that income, it becomes wealth. Returns generated by that wealth are income and are taxed as income. What's proposed is that we tax wealth - not the returns to wealth (which are already taxed), but the wealth itself. If we tax wealth then we're taxing a second time, something that's already been taxed once.

[@leafykille]

I think I made myself pretty clear, but just incase I'll try and make it even clearer with an example. I earn 1,000/month my landlord earns 10,000/ month. Of the 1000 I earn, 500 goes to the landlord, 200 goes to transport, 150 on food 100 for utilities and what's left is for clothes toiletries and everything else that is needed for a normal life. All that money I'm spending in stores gets taxed again. My landlord spends a much smaller portion of their income in shops and so a much smaller portion of their income is taxed again. I can't save for an asset to allow for passive income, whereas my landlord can easily save for another house to increase their income even further reducing the portion of their income spent in shops and taxed again even further. Billionaires are the same only magnified many times.

[@AntonyDavies]

@@leafykille you pick up the story in the middle. Where did your landlord get the wealth he has? He got it from working and saving. If he can do it, so can you.

[@arandomperson8336]

I grew up in poverty but today in my mid-40s I make six figures. During the day I'm an analyst and night I trade. So I know the importance of programs like public housing, food stamps (SNAP now), public education, and others because none of this would have been possible without the assistance I received back then. But the further I go the more our tax code annoys me. Why do we tax self-employment more than literally anything else you could be doing? I want to start a business but it's risky and I don't want to hand over slightly over half my potential income from it to various tax men. Why do section 1256 options and futures have such tax advantages? I don't care about derivatives, I'm just here for the tax savings. Want to make a big sale? That's going to subject all your day-job monies to the AMT! I'm actually seriously thinking of moving offshore to start my business (look up Nomad Capitalist) but I'm not quite at that level yet.

[@vit8250]

Wanna know what asset class is the most tax friendly? It’s called owning real estate, not trading stocks.

[@amberfoster3285]

Start your business as an LLC. It's nontaxable income if you pay yourself through it.

[@chrisneymeyer2051]

I would love it if I only paid 2 percent in taxes. How is this man a professor when hes putting out false information? I made around 70,000 and I paid around 30 percent.

[@rameshthevarajan]

These people control things when others have nothing..welbeing above economics...too much leads to exploitation...money makes rules😊

[@Istandby666]

I like his subliminal message. It's there to trick your brain in to thinking what he is saying is true. So, why the subliminal message? Why are you tricking people in to believing you? If what you say are "FACTS", then why use trickery? Thumbs down for misconstrued information.

[@herbertvonsauerkrautunterh2513]

When it comes to the crunch, it's no one's business what others have or do. I don't care that summer have more than me. If you complain about big corporate profits buy shares in these companies and partake of the wealth. So bloody simple.

[@beauxr.benoit1374]

But it would help the rest of the population if they had to spread some of it around to others in the Community where they live.

[@benjaminlehman3221]

What gives us the right to take more of THEIR money?

[@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993]

No it won't

[@beauxr.benoit1374]

@@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993 If they had a salary cap, a predetermined retirement package that isn't expensive, and then anything they make after that is returned to public. And the rich have to pay taxes. I know, it may be Fiction. But how does this not help?

[@trredd6074]

Fed

[@Capitalist_Pig314]

I have always believed that we need billionaires far more than the billionaires need the rest of us. The talented few who have the drive, the vision, and the ability to build a huge fortune or rare on this earth. Granted, there are some bad billionaires such as Russian oligarchs perhaps. But most of, our pretty stand up people. Most of them care about their fellow man. Most of them are building for the betterment of society. And yes, they do pay their share of taxes. The problem in America is that most people do not anymore. Most people do not pay any federal income tax. Therefore, they don’t care what government cost anymore.

[@survivingthetimes]

They do have a point with the automation thing. I'm not talking about 100 years ago. The post WW2 manufacturing jobs paid a hell of a lot more than all the jobs in retail and the service industry do today. Here in my city, thousands of auto workers were replaced by robots. The ones that are left don't make near the money that they did back in the 60's, 70's, and well into the 80's in some cases. So what do we have now? Walmart, dozens of restaurants, hotels, etc., that pay extremely low wages. There's no comparison between 15 bucks per hour at Walmart in 2023 where you probably won't even get 40 hours, and the 30+ dollars per hour along with the best benefits the industry has ever given in the mid 80's - where there was overtime galore and other perks. What happened to those good paying jobs? Automation killed a ton, some went to foreign countries, very few are still here but pay less..

[@margibso]

3:12 Are you taking into account payroll taxes? I can't see your numbers working out if you include the 15.3% that everyone who works pays as a flat tax up to 160k. This significantly flattens the tax rate between very high income earners and the middle class. Also, if you include sales tax to the state, it flattens out even more. People who make more money put higher amounts of their income into investments that are not taxed upfront.

[@ExPwner]

Yes it does

[@AntonyDavies]

Yes. It includes all income, from whatever source, and all taxes paid to the federal government. Sales taxes are paid to states, not the federal government. The thing about this topic that often trips up people is the Earned Income Tax Credit. Low income people and people with children get to claim the EITC when they file their taxes. We don't notice the EITC because it's just one more calculation that we perform in filling out our tax returns. But, because it reduces the tax burden, for many people it significantly offsets what they owe in income and payroll taxes. That is, it's clear to everyone that we pay the 15% (or whatever) because it comes out of each paycheck. But it's not nearly as clear that we're getting a lot of that back in the form of a tax rebate every April 15.

[@margibso]

@@AntonyDavies Thanks for responding. Part of my response was due to a Vox video I watch years ago that broke down the total tax distribution across all income levels. I found it very convincing. Looking back at it, I see that it doesn't include any government assistance programs including EITC. Also, 12% consumption tax on the poor seems impossibly high. All I can figure is that they are including taxes paid on products bought with money from the government, but not including that money as part of their income.

[@JonathanBhagan]

Depends on the billionaire , SBF was bad for the economy

[@GenXican84]

Wait and see what happens to humans when robots that can build 🤖 robots come on-line.

[@DanielIbar-eg5qu]

No he's🤣 actually killing them

[@nayanmipun6784]

I always like billionaires

[@donalddouglas5988]

If the super rich are so good for the economy, we should have a negative income tax for billionaires.

[@roquettothestars9751]

Wired, dishonest, imagine my shock...not really shocked

[@johnd.5601]

I'm confused. These CEOs own stocks and basically own their companies. They also expand the companies share count and pay the par value of the stock + lawyer fees. For instance, Amazon stock spot price is 94.98 per share, and the par value is .01. So .01 cost AMZN = 94.86. When Jeff Bezos sells his stock, he paid .01 for it and gets 94.86. Then, pay taxes. Then, on the downside, the top price of AMZN was 187.20. If Jeff Bezos has losses on his stock compensation, say his cost basis is higher than the spot value he can tax loss harvest on shares he made at a .01 and sold for less than his cost basis. It just looks like they are paying taxes at $0 .01. Our 401k look like nothing more than a way from corporations to tax us.

[@rajeshgajwelly9035]

He can only tax loss harvest as much as the amount of new shares he receive in compensation. If he sells more than that he has to pay the full tax.

[@johnd.5601]

@Choksiri P. I just used Amazon as an example. I don't understand how the tax rate is the same if expanding the share count only costs .01 per share + lawyer fees. When CEOs sell shares, the spot price goes down. So if you paid .01 and sold your shares at $10.00. Then, they sold shares and lowered the spot price to $5. They could buy after $5, drive up the spot price to $10. Then, sell down to $5, holding enough shares to cover the taxable amount in losses. They won't have to pay taxes or file much paperwork? I'm not implying this to be nefarious, I'm just trying to understand.

[@rajeshgajwelly9035]

​@@johnd.5601 In your example, if their cost basis was $0.01 and they sold at $10, they made roughly $10 in profit. Buying the shares again at $5 and selling it $10 means they made $5 in profit. Buying the shares yet again at $10 and selling at $5 means they lost $5. So they made $10+$5-$5 = $10 in profit, so they have to pay $2 in tax (assuming 20% capital gains tax). Also most CEO do not own enough shares to move the market.

[@johnd.5601]

@Choksiri P. That $2. Only cost them less than 1 shsre they paid 0.01 for a share. A medium profit on a product is 40% above the cost of manufacturing. 1 share at .01 and sells at $$5 to $10 is more than 40%, and there are only lawyer fees and trade fees that are also less costly and produce less tax revenue because there is less labor involved.

[@rajeshgajwelly9035]

@@johnd.5601 Stock compensations are not manufactured goods. It's more like a salary. Do you pay anything in return for your salary?

[@Realcaramelli]

I don’t really care about the morality of billionaires, I think that many of them are not productive for the economy. How many of these billionaires are industrialists improving productivity of the average worker (ie Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk) and how many of these are billionaires that are rent seeking/ consumerist celebrities?

[@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993]

Every single one of them is an industrialist improving productivity of average worker. Bezos provides trucks and forklifts and computers for his workers and reducers wait times for deliveries. Musk produces sockets satellites and cars but you hate more ambitious ppl so have at it

[@Nill757]

Claim #2 taxes: That CBO report uses *taxable* income, after deductions for charitable donations, like say, a $10M gift to U that gets your kid into the U. It’s not all income.

[@AntonyDavies]

That is incorrect. CBO counts all income, not taxable income. The text below is from their annual report, Appendix B... Household income, unless otherwise indicated, refers to income before accounting for the effects of means-tested transfers and federal taxes. Throughout this report, that income concept is called income before transfers and taxes. It consists of market income plus social insurance benefits. Labor income. Wages and salaries, including those allocated by employees to 401(k) and other employment-based retirement plans; employer-paid health insurance premiums (as measured by the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey); the employer’s share of Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment insurance payroll taxes; and the share of corporate income taxes borne by workers. Business income. Net income from businesses and farms operated solely by their owners, partnership income, and income from S corporations. Capital income (including capital gains). Net profits realized from the sale of assets (but not increases in the value of assets that have not been realized through sales); taxable and tax-exempt interest; dividends paid by corporations (but not dividends from S corporations, which are considered part of business income); positive rental income; and the share of corporate income taxes borne by capital owners. Other income sources. Income received in retirement for past services and other nongovernmental sources of income.

[@darkgalaxy5548]

The Bible says the poor will be with us always. The unwritten corollary- And so will the rich.

[@MrAdamo]

7:26 this example is contrived. Either A: The tree uses most of its resources, or B: it has a considerable amount of excess resources. In case A, you’re begging the question by assuming billionaires are using their money properly, which is the claim we’re investing. In case B, it works against your example, because pruning the tree is equivalent to taxes. Speaking of pruning trees, have you ever kept a garden? And I don’t mean the kind you pay someone to manage.

[@miblish5168]

Why do you ruin this with uselessly bad music?

[@williamgibson6429]

Tax the rich give everyone 40 Achers!

[@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993]

They tried it in Zimbabwe Google it

[@vit8250]

It takes a certain level of wisdom to understand this.

[@PrincipalDBA]

Keep it simple. Some things cost billions of dollars. We therefore need billionaires to build those things. In terms of Amazon. Year after year they acquire other companies for billions but report losses. That is confusing. The explanation lies in the code of capital. The income of billionaires tend to be dividends which are taxed at 10% putting them in the lowest bracket. I do not see billionaires getting stoned with apples or eggs. I think this is about the preferred treatment of a class of people.

[@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993]

No one stopped you from investing in dividends

[@PrincipalDBA]

@@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993 Not sure what that means. Unless you are speaking about a REIT, dividends serve those who are already wealthy. What does that mean? What is your light bill? How much dividend will you need to pay the light bill? For me that is $250000-or 33 years of light bill in advance. That is just one bill. There are taxes and insurance and the like. The point is dividends sound great but it pays terrible until you are 33 years ahead.

[@williamgibson6429]

The zRich pay very little if any tax and get corporate. Welfare!A flat tax will destroy the middle. Class!

[@ikeikeforty]

The rich pay more than anyone else both in absolute terms and in percentage. Did you watch the video? 1:50

[@yuki-sakurakawa]

14:06 Private charities, churches, and fraternal orgs (eg elks, freemasons) traditionally provided social welfare. But there was a reason we switched: Not enough donations to actually help. Keep in mind, this is the system employed under the Dickenson era, and the kids and dads were in workhouses and begging or stealing in the streets. Generational blindness. Not many alive remember these days so we like to romanticize it. If private charities or insurances are desired instead of socialized healthcare, education, military (yes, the biggest socialist system in the us), housing, etc, then have that, just ensure they are capped at percentage of income (eg healthcare companies can't charge more than 9% of annual income).